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Man, that is exactly what I associate with Lucien van der Walt, Zabalaza, and fancy "white radicalism" in South Africa - lots of words, long walls of text, the pretense that the tankies sitting in the same room isn't the reason for anarchism and syndicalism's demise in South Africa. Is it too much to ask for something a bit more credible and practical?

I generally use the term "fancy" in a sarcastic way... sorry about that. I just feel it's rarefied. Whenever I hear "Zabalaza" I get this mental image of a bunch of white academics and white upper-middle class types trying to play vanguard from behind a group of black township people. It's probably unfair, but hey, that's the picture I get. I don't reject academia... I'm just not in the mood for another bunch of Noam Chomsky-armchair socialists.

From what I understand, the anarcho-syndicalist movement in South Africa was pretty strong before and in between the wars. For some reason that I don't understand, they all got swept up into the SACP after the Rand rebellion in the early twenties, from which they were, in turn, purged on Stalin's orders. There's little mention of them being prominent in the Torch Commando fiasco after World War 2 - (you know, back in the days when it was actually the anti-fascists marching at night with tiki-torches). So it seems it was over even before then.

Now that the fallists are out of the hysteria-spotlight here it's a lot easier to get an accurate view of them. At the start, there were a LOT of people trying to make names for themselves by saying and doing stupid things, while the serious people were ignored. The way the media misrepresents and distorts things here is pretty unbelievable - there's really little counter-narratives going on here. This is especially bad for me when trying to understand these things, since I'm stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I admire the way they've managed to resist being co-opted by identitarian politics - no mean feat in South Africa. I saw the conditions black kids were living in at these educational institutions about twenty years ago... it's surprising to me that this has taken so long to happen.

In my opinion, if there's going to be anything "anarchist" growing in South Africa, it's going to have to be a case of, "It's anarchism, Jim, but not as we know it". I think the one thing that bugs me about movements such as the Fallists as well as AmB is that they aren't necessarily anti-state - it's more a question of they're anti-the current state. But, like I said, that's probably because it's not "my" anarchism... it cannot be, not in this place. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. I'm a bit worn out from dealing with all the toxicity over on the South African sub over at reddit - so, apologies if I sound a bit off.

A forum for radical analysis and commentary about the large and heterogenous place racialised and given identity in significant part by colonialism that continues in fresh forms today.

Questions around decolonial practice, indigeneity, race, and racial diaspora, among many others have room to be explored here.

There is little anarchism in Africa, though there are significant proto-anarchist societies. Both can be read about in the 1997 book African Anarchism (PDF) by Nigerian anarchists Mbah and Igariwey.

Post-2010, there has been some resurgence of anarchism in Egypt, with Black Flag, and the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement. Anarcho-syndicalism is not unheard of in Nigeria. South Africa has especifismo platformist group Zabalaza and mostly-Anarchist Hip-hop Crew Soundz Of the South, and the (now defunct?) bolo'bolo collective.

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